Clive D. W. Feather wrote to uk.transport.london on Tue, 24 Aug 2004:

In article , Roland
Perry writes
Except that the Home Office Immigration department has a list of
people who are in the country legally, so if you can reliably
establish someone's name, you can check it against that list.

I don't recall any scanning of EU passports at Waterloo last time I
came that way, and I don't think either Paris or Brussels did so
either. And I'm sure there was no scanning last time I used a ferry.

Last time I came into Waterloo there was a massive long queue for
passport control. I can't remember whether or not they scanned them,
though. And at the various Shuttle passport controls, they barely
glance at your passports, although sometimes I think they do scan them.
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)